Introduction"Cosmos" is an Emmy award winning television documentary series, consisting of 13
one-hour episodes. When it was first broadcast on PBS public television in 1980 it
immediately attracted wide-spread attention. Taking over three years to produce,
the series touched many viewers through presenting many complex scientific
subjects in an explanatory way that made them more accessible to a wider audiance.
"Cosmos" is a milestone in popularising science and set an example to many documentaries that followed.
Today the series has been broadcast in 60 countries and viewed by
600 million people worldwide....

The series comprises the following episodes:

The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean

One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue

Harmony of the Worlds

Heaven and Hell

Blues for a Red Planet

Travellers' Tales

The Backbone of Night

Travels in Space and Time

The Lives of the Stars

The Edge of Forever

The Persistence of Memory

Encyclopaedia Galactica

Who Speaks for Earth?

Carl SaganPart of the succes of "Cosmos" can easily be attributed to
Carl Sagan
(1934 - 1996), the series host. Astronomer, educator and author, Sagan was perhaps
the world's greatest popularizer of science, reaching millions of people through
newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts. He is well-known for his work
on the award winning Cosmos TV series. The accompanying book, Cosmos (1980), was
on The New York Times bestseller list for 70 weeks and was the best-selling
science book ever published in English.

As an astronomer Sagan played a leading role in NASA's Mariner, Viking,
Voyager and Galileo expeditions to other planets. As an educator and scientific
researcher Carl Sagan held the positions of Professor of Astronomy and Space
Sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell
University.

As an author Sagan published numerous scientific papers and popular articles
and is author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books, including The Dragons
of Eden (1977), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978. Sagan's only novel
"Contact" (1985) made it onto the big screen when it was turned into a movie in
1996.

Cosmos
TV seriesEversince the first broadcast the TV series has been re-broadcast and
published in different versions. With the original series developed as a
non-commercial broadcast for public television in 1980, a variety of
music could
and was used, ranging from from classical, ethnical and traditional music, to
Vangelis synthesized pieces.

This changed when in 1986 on occasion of Halley's comet Carl Sagan wanted
to redo the original series and focus more on the astronomical subjects. With
the status of Cosmos changing to a commercial product, this posed some
difficulty due to the legal rights of the music used in the series. Therefor the
music had to be changed in places where copyrighted music was heard that
couldn't be cleared. In it's place, Vangelis provided completely new music, most
of which can only be heard in this version of the series... The
revisited series was broadcast as 'Cosmos, a special edition'.

When in 1989 the producers wanted to release the original series commercially
on VHS and Laser Disc, again the legal rights of the music made it a difficult
process. Visually this release is mostly the same as the original version, but
some of the music in the original version was replaced with other music.

Then in 2000 Carl Sagan's widow Ann Druyan put much effort in arranging a
final edition of the series on both
VHS and
DVD. This
release has been digitally remastered, restored and enhanced, both in audio and
video. Next to that it contains additional 'science update' sequences as
recorded in 1990 with Carl Sagan.

Cosmos,
a special editionThe 1986 version of Cosmos is special in many ways. First of all the
series is much shorter than the original broadcast, consisting of six episodes
each about 45 minutes in length:

Other Worlds part 1

Other Worlds part 2

Children of the Stars part 1

Children of the Stars part 2

Message from the Sky part 1

Message from the Sky part 2

Visually the series uses several of the
historic sequences and animations from the original series, but interweaved are
also new computer animated sequences and additional scenes with host Carl Sagan.
As known today, the special edition version was at least broadcast in the
USA, Japan, Germany and Australia.

As for the music, this version of Cosmos
contains a mix of music used in the original series, together with a unique
score by Vangelis, composed specially for this series... This score in some sources
is also referred to as "Comet", with "Comet 16" acting as the title and ending
theme of each episode. Unfortunately, only one of the total 21 cues of this
beautiful score has officially been released, "Comet 16". Some of the new music
also appears in the 2000 remastered VHS and DVD release. Apparently also one
cue made it into the 1989 VHS release.